December 18, 2016

In the near future when autonomous vehicles are buzzing around they will need to have some method of charging themselves. ARMdevices.net interviewed Kevin Leary from Power Hydrant who has a solution to this issue. With this system an electric vehicle will be able to have this system detect the vehicle type and have the robot charging arm connect power automatically. This is done by having the various types of electric vehicles modeled in the system and with the aid of a vision system the arm knows exactly what to do.

“PowerHydrant is an early stage startup focused on applying the “smart phone dividend” to deliver 3D sensor based conductive autonomous fast-charging for Autonomous Vehicles and eMobility. Based in Boston’s Innovation District, PowerHydrant is a member of the MIT Startup Exchange and part of Autodesk’s inaugural Startups in Residence (STIR) group.

PowerHydrant® has important advantages over other hands-free charging technologies:
1. Conductive robotic charging is unencumbered by power-transfer constraints and can charge at rates from less than 3kW to over 150kW (fast-charge) @ 99% efficiencies.
2. There are no vehicle-alignment, foreign-object, or EMC/EMI constraints.
3. A single charger can be autonomously time-shared (by 2 to 8 vehicles) for cost and congestion management. Optimal sharing ensured by Max-min fairness.
4. Simpler to Install or retrofit.
5. High efficiency means less heat, higher reliability, better safety, and better user acceptance.
6. V2X support assured.”